Chrysler Group Sold to Cerberus Capital Management LP

Date 2007/5/14 6:57:17 | Topic: Miscellaneous

Breaking news this morning...

DaimlerChrysler moved to undo the most expensive and one of the least successful mergers in auto industry history Monday as it agreed to sell its money-losing Chrysler unit for only a fraction of what it paid nine years ago.

DaimlerChrysler (Charts) announced it will sell an 80 percent stake in its U.S. brand for $7.4 billion to Cerberus Capital, a private equity investment firm. The private equity sector has become a major force in acquisition of publicly owned companies in recent years.

DaimlerChrysler sells majority stake of its struggling U.S. brand for $7.4 billion to Cerberus Capital, a New York-based private equity group. The German automaker then known as Daimler-Benz paid $37 billion for the U.S. automaker in 1998, but it soon found itself weighed down by uncompetitive labor costs and losing sales to nimbler Japanese rivals.